Packer's Miss Moneypenny

By David Haselhurst

30 October 2008 — 12:00am

PATRICIA WHEATLEY

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

10-3-1944  26-10-2008

PAT Wheatley, who lived in the shadow of three of Australia's most powerful men for almost a generation from the mid-1960s, has died from pancreatic cancer at the Sacred Heart hospice at Darlinghurst in Sydney. She was 64.

Wheatley was secretary-executive assistant to the former prime minister Billy McMahon, to the rebel newsletter publisher and newspaperman Maxwell Newton, and then to the media mogul Kerry Packer for 18 years.

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She knew where many politico-business skeletons were buried but kept her silence. When she retired in 1992, Packer gave her a generous allowance for life, on the understanding that she not write a book or talk to media.

Wheatley was born at Manly to Arthur and Gladys Wheatley, and her first paid job was delivering milk from her maternal grandparents' dairy farm. Working in the pre-dawn darkness, she humped a milk can through spider-infested gardens to fill billy cans hung from front verandas.

After attending Manly Home Science School, Wheatley joined the Commonwealth parliamentary secretarial pool in Canberra. In the mid-1960s, she joined the staff of Billy McMahon, then minister for labor and national service, where she met Peter Kelly. After McMahon was elevated to federal treasurer under Prime Minister Harold Holt, Kelly joined journalist Maxwell Newton, the founding editor of The Australian in 1966, who  after a falling out with proprietor Rupert Murdoch  set up his own chain of controversial newsletters with headquarters in Canberra. Wheatley joined them.

She was there when ASIO raided Newton's offices in 1969, in search of "leaked" trade documents. Wheatley, Newton and Kelly appeared on national television screens offering sandwiches and drinks to the raiders as they pulled the office apart. The documents were never found. They had been secreted in the garden.

Wheatley had an eye for detail and skill in planning. In pre-computer days she arranged for Newton, his wife, son and daughter, to fly to India, where they split up to travel in different directions. Remarkably, after 10 days on trains and other transport, they were reunited at a railway station in central India to be transported to Bombay for the flight home.

Newton's publishing business began to implode in the early 1970s, as he overstretched himself in a chain of regional weeklies, two Sunday papers (The Observer in Melbourne and The Post in Canberra) and other publications. Wheatley moved to the Sydney racing radio station 2KY, and while there she heard that Packer was seeking a secretary. She went to see him and he telephoned Newton and McMahon in front of her. Packer hired her immediately, on the award rate with a review in six months. That was 1974.

Soon after her arrival, Wheatley flew to the United States with her boss, handing out $US10 notes to baggage handlers and door-openers and keeping his appointments book in order. Sitting next to Packer, a non-drinker, in first class on the aircraft, she noticed he was looking doubtfully at her after she accepted a glass of champagne. The moment was saved as Andrew Peacock greeted her as a long-lost friend and Packer realised his new employee had wide connections in Canberra.

Packer was a big punter but rarely carried any money. It was reputed  although never confirmed by Wheatley  that she was required to carry $US100,000 in her handbag in the US in case he felt like a flutter. On one trip, an overweight Texan tried to intimidate her boss at blackjack tables in Las Vegas, boasting that he owned several thousand acres and even more cattle. Packer, whose family company Consolidated Pastoral Holdings was the third biggest land owner in Australia, said: "I'll toss you for it." Once, she told an inquiring Packer that his luncheon appointment with Rupert Murdoch was the following day.

He insisted she was wrong, accused her of "stuffing up again" and stormed off to the News Limited offices.

When he got there he dismissed his driver, only to learn the lunch, indeed, was the next day.

Without money he couldn't get a bus, and taxis were scarce. When he finally got back to the office, his embarrassment was cancelled when he "sprung" Wheatley, Bulletin editor Trevor Kennedy and columnist David McNicoll demolishing a magnum of Bollinger champagne. They thought they were rid of the boss for the afternoon.

Wheatley dabbled in horse racing and was a part-owner of Sound Horizon, which won the rich Epsom Handicap in 1987.

When she asked for time off to watch the horse at its first start, Packer lectured her on the perils of a young woman owning a racehorse  then told her to put $1000 on for him.

The horse failed to win and Packer could scarcely conceal his glee. Wheatley shot back: "Well, you should laugh; I put your thousand on the nose."

She was joking; it was part of the banter they shared.

Wheatley retired when diabetes required her to slow down, and lived at Bowral.

She helped charities such as Jeans for Genes, and was amused when detectives visited, still investigating the theft of more than $1 million in gold bullion from a Packer safe.